Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock has a fairly good idea of how Nylander, misfiring with three points in 14 games, can get out of it.

The thought process falls into line with an adage Babcock likes to use when the Leafs as whole haven’t played well: Put your work before your skill.

“He’s got to get better,” Babcock said of Nylander after the Leafs lost 4-0 against the Nashville Predators on Monday night at Scotiabank Arena. “All the details, all the compete, all that stuff has just got to keep getting better.

“He will the more he plays, but the urgency level has to be there, for sure.”

There shouldn’t have to be a verbal nudge for Nylander. The 22-year-old should have many sources of inspiration for performing well, not the least of which is the six-year, $45-million US contract he signed on Dec. 1.

Nylander has the kind of skill that the majority of National Hockey League players would accept in a minute if given a choice. When he’s engaged, Nylander can dominate games; we’ve seen it happen the past two seasons, when Nylander recorded 61 points in each.

Babcock has been down a similar road before with Nylander, dating to the latter’s initial audition with the Leafs late in the 2015-16 season. It’s not really something the coach has had to do with Auston Matthews; that Mitch Marner was relegated to fourth-line status at times in the past two seasons seems preposterous now.

Nylander played 18 minutes 12 seconds against the Predators, his high for one game since returning, and had eight shot attempts.

Nylander, though, has too much skill for there to be only glimpses of his capabilities.

Enough time has passed since returning to the lineup on Dec. 6 that Nylander should be making a greater impact.

JOHNSSON REBOUNDS

Winger Andreas Johnsson has found a place of comfort after initial struggles.

Johnsson has 16 points (seven goals and nine assists) in his past 19 games, the production coming after he had three points in his first 18 games and was a healthy scratch for five.

“Sometimes I look back and laugh a little bit at how it was before, but that reminds me, too, of how hard I need to work every day and stay at the level of where I am now,” Johnsson said. “I’m in a comfortable zone where I feel like I can do a lot of things out on the ice and always look to improve, and I’m more happy with the performance in the last month than I was in the beginning of the season.”

The expectation coming out of training camp was that Johnsson would use his play in the American Hockey League playoffs, when he was a catalyst in the Toronto Marlies’ Calder Cup title run and was named MVP, as a springboard into 2018-19 with the Leafs.

That didn’t happen.

“You can’t take any shifts off,” Johnsson said. “That’s the difference, is the skill level.

“You get 10 games and playoffs last season (with the Leafs, as Johnsson did), but that’s more of a rush. You live in a bubble for one month and now you have to do it through a whole season and figure it out. There were adjustments.”

Johnson will be a restricted free agent next summer, and though he acknowledged he thinks about his next contract from time to time, it’s not consuming him.

“It pops up a little here and there but it’s not really affecting my play,” Johnsson said. “It’s okay to talk about it, but it’s not like I go around and think I need to do this and this to get this. It’s unnecessary thinking.”

LOOSE LEAFS

General manager Kyle Dubas reportedly is scouting in Russia this week with a possible eye on CSKA Moscow centre Sergei Andronov, who has 11 points in 39 games in the KHL. The 29-year-old Andronov was drafted by the St. Louis Blues in the third round of the 2009 NHL draft and played in the American Hockey League from 2012-14 before returning home … With the Leafs taking a full day off on Tuesday, the club returned winger Trevor Moore and goaltender Kasimir Kaskisuo to the Marlies. Babcock indicated on Monday night that winger Zach Hyman, who has missed the past eight games with a sprained ankle, will be cleared to play in New Jersey against the Devils on Thursday, and the same could be true of No. 1 goaltender Frederik Andersen, who has missed the past six games with a groin injury. We’ll have a clearer idea at practice on Wednesday … Since scoring two goals on the road against the Los Angeles Kings on Nov. 13, Nazem Kadri has two goals in his past 24 games. Kadri has 99 shots on goal, and only two Leafs forwards — John Tavares with 157 and Marner with 119 — have more … Patrick Marleau has gone six games without a point, his longest dry spell of the season … Connor Brown scored in back-to-back games early in November and has nothing since, his no-goal streak now at 26 games … With the blanking at the hands of the Predators, the Leafs were shut out for the second time in four games and for the third time this season. In 2017-18, they were shut out just twice. The 18 shots on goal the Leafs had versus Nashville tied for the third-fewest they have had in a game since Babcock took over in 2015.

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